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Why Write?
“...I tell my students that the odds of
their getting published and of it bringing them financial security, peace of mind, and even joy are probably not that great.
Ruin, hysteria, bad skin, unsightly tics, ugly financial problems, maybe; but probably not peace of mind. I tell them that
I think they ought to write anyway. But I try to make sure they understand that writing, and even getting good at it, and
having books and stories and articles published, will not open the doors that most of them hope for. It will not make them
well. It will not give them the feeling that the world has finally validated their parking tickets, that they have in fact
finally arrived. My writer friends, and they are legion, do not go around beaming with quiet feelings of contentment. Most
of them go around with haunted, abused, suprised looks on their faces, like lab dogs on whom very personal deodorant sprays
have been tested....But I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who
hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give,
so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be
the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really
needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.” —Anne Lamott, from Bird By Bird
“To me the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about,
but the music the words make.” —Truman Capote
“For a long time now I have tried simply
to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.” —Ernest
Hemingway
“If
there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” —Toni Morrison
“There is no pleasure in the world like writing well and going fast.” —Tennessee Williams
“A writer ought to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.” —Mark Twain
“Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day.” —Norman Mailer
“If you wish to be a writer, write.” —Epictetus
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Writing IS Hard Work
“Writing is the hardest work
in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you—as if you haven’t been told a million times
already—that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.” —Harlan
Ellison
“A
writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas
Mann
“The
way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn’t behave that way
you would never do anything.” —John Irving
“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer
life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” —Eugene Ionesco
“We do not write because
we want to; we write because we have to.” —Somerset Maugham
“Writing a book is a long,
exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven
by some demon one can neither resist nor understand.” —George Orwell
“I admire anybody who has
the guts to write anything at all.” —E.B. White
“Writing is the hardest work in the world
not involving heavy lifting.” —Pete Hamill
“Writing is the hardest way of earning a
living with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.” —William Saroyan
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